Cake Walk

A local baker’s gluten-free triumph

What if you spent your whole life doing something you loved only to find out it was making you sick? That's what happened to Coco Kislinger, a young Santa Monica woman whose lifelong passion for baking was so intense, she ditched law school to attend Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. But then the unthinkable happened: She developed an intolerance to dairy and a sensitivity to gluten.

Lucky for us, Kislinger is a plucky sweet-toothed survivor. She tweaked her high-level chef skills to use only a restricted ingredient list and opened Coco Bakes, a gluten- and dairy-free bakery.